Healing, Anointing and Other Questions;
James 5:13-20
We have emphasized in James
that theme throughout the entire epistle is perseverance in times of adversity.
He wraps his theme around a three-point message in
James
These questions are all
related. The first question is the controlling question: “Is anyone among you
suffering?” That is the theme of the epistle. Then, “Is any one cheerful?” The
word cheerful really means “encouraged.” This is the positive response: the
believer who has handled the outside pressure of suffering by applying doctrine
and he is strengthened in his soul. The other response, then, is the one who
failed. So there is the issue of adversity, and what do you do if successful
and what do you do if you fail? And that is the understanding of these three
opening questions in this paragraph.
“Is anyone among you
suffering? “ This is the Greek word KAKOPATHEO [kakopaqew]
which means to suffer physical pain, hardship and distress, to go through
intense suffering. We saw this word in verse 10: “As an example, brethren, of
suffering.” So this tells us when we come to verse 13 that James is writing
still in the same vein that he has been talking in the previous three verses,
he is not going off into some new subject. The principle is that the context is
still patient endurance in the midst of adversity, so we have to interpret
whatever phrases we come to by letting the context determine our
interpretation. The next word we have to investigate is the word for cheerful, EUTHUMEO [e)uqumew]. By
looking at the English, talking about cheerful or joyful, it might be that we
would expect a Greek word related to CHARA [xara],
“joy.” But it is not what we find. What we find is a word that means to be or
to become encouraged, and hence cheerful. Cheerful is a secondary meaning to
the word, it is not the primary core meaning of this word. It means to be
encouraged, to take courage, to become encouraged. In other
words, to be strengthened in your soul.
Whenever you hit adversity
you have a choice to make: whether or not to apply doctrine in the way you
handle that problem. If you apply doctrine the Scripture says that that is the
procedure for edifying (building up or strengthening) your soul. This is the
positive response: Is anyone cheerful? This is the one who has been encouraged.
We have looked at the answers, so now we look at the questions. First, Is anyone among you suffering [going through
adversity]? Response: Let him pray.
Prayer is not a stress-buster. The reason prayer is not a stress-buster is that
prayer is a vehicle of communication with God through which we utilize several
of the stress-busters. So in and of itself it is not s stress-buster, it is a
vehicle for using the faith-rest drill, a vehicle for expressing our personal
love for God, our occupation with Christ. So if anyone is suffering they are to
go to the Lord. This is the same solution that James had referred to in the
fist chapter: If any of you lack wisdom [application of doctrine], let him ask
of God.” In the context it is the wisdom of doctrine to apply to the test. If
you are going through a test and you don’t know how to handle it, the solution
is to ask of God—“by means of faith,” the problem-solving device, the
faith-rest drill. James is simply coming back to his basic theme, just as at
the beginning.
“Is anyone strengthened
[by their positive response]? He is to sing praises.” This is giving thanks to
God. Praise is a vocal expression of the gratitude in our souls. Gratitude is
always a measure of our spirituality, the barometer of our spiritual growth. We
are to give thanks in all things. So our ability to look at the adversity and
to have gratitude towards God because of what he is doing reflects the fact
that we have divine viewpoint of the situation and we understand what the
dynamics are in adversity and stress.
Then we come to our third
question and this is where there is a lot of confusion. The strengthened soul,
the soul fortress: there are the entry way, 1 John
1:9; inside that fortification is tantamount to being in fellowship, walking by
means of the Holy Spirit, abiding in Christ. Christ is our protector. We
develop the bricks that make up the fortification by means of learning and
assimilating doctrine. So this is a picture of the strengthened, i.e.
encouraged, believer. This is in contrast to the believer who has fragmented
his soul and is falling apart. “Is anyone among you sick?” At first glance
everyone thinks that now we are going to learn about healing. There are some
contextual problems with that interpretation. There are lexical problems with
that interpretation and some practical problems. Very few people are willing to
face those practical problems. “{Then} he must call for the elders of the
church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the
Lord;
The problem that we see
here is that this is expressed as an unconditional promise. “The prayer offered
in faith will,” it doesn’t say might, in most case, it sell it will restore the
one who is sick. What happens unfortunately is that people take this verse and
misapply it, and they say that if you prayed and really had faith you would be
healed. You just have to trust the Lord; the problem is you just don’t have
enough faith. The word translated “sick” in verse 14 is the word ASTHENEO [a)sqenew]. This
is a compound word, then alpha prefix is a negative and it negates the word; it
is like “un” in English. STHENEO comes from a root that means strength, so basically
the root sense of this word is to be without strength, to be weak, and that is
its essential core meaning. Question: In what sense of weakness is this passage
talking about?
Arndt and Gingrich:
1) Bodily weakness: Matthew 25:39; Luke 10:1; John 4:46;
11:1, 2, 3, 6; Philippians 2:26ff; 2 Timothy
2) In 68-70% of the times this word is the Gospels where
this word is used it means physically sick, but when you get into the epistles
it flip-flops, it shifts from the majority of usages referring to physical sickness
to spiritual or moral weakness. That is the second meaning of the word. It
means to be weak in faith .
3) To be weak economically, to be in need.
Sometimes when we come to
a passage we have to determine what kind of weakness we are talking about in the
passage, a physical weakness or a spiritual weakness.
Examples:
Matthew 25:44 NASB
“Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or
thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick [a)sqenhj], or in prison, and did not take care of You?’” There
is an example of where this word means sickness.
Matthew 26:41 NASB
“Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit
is willing, but the flesh is weak [a)sqnhew].” The flesh is spiritually impotent,
there is a spiritual inability that comes because of a lack of doctrine, a lack
of application of doctrine, or reliance upon the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians
So this word has a range
of meanings, its core meaning is weak and we have to
determine from the context whether it means to be physically weak or
spiritually weak. James
Hebrews 12:1 NASB
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us
also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so
easily entangles us, and let us run with
endurance the race that is set before us.” What do we think the subject
matter of Hebrews 12 is now? Endurance, HUPOMONE, the same word we find in James. How do we do that?
[2] “fixing our eyes on Jesus [occupation with Christ], the author and
perfecter of faith [doctrine], who for the joy set before Him [inner happiness
motivated Him] endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the
right hand of the throne of God.
James
Looking at the last part
of that verse we realize that maybe we are talking about something different
from physical sickness, because as soon as we introduce the concept of sin we
realize that what had happened was that this person had been converting the
outside pressure of adversity into the inside pressure of stress in the soul.
Their soul is fragmenting, it is compounding itself, they are a diyuxoj believer, double-minded, unstable in all their ways,
and they have reached appoint where they are incapable of going forward. They
are overwhelmed by depression, by discouragement, by failure, and so this is
giving God’s solution here and it is related to the use of the faith-rest
drill, specifically manifested in prayer.
Another thing we need to
look at is some of the words for restoration that are used in the passage. V.
15: “The prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick.” The word
there for “restore” is SOZO [swzw].
It means to deliver, and to save. The root meaning is to deliver and it is always
necessary to look at the context to see what the deliverance is from. This is
talking about realizing maturity in the spiritual life. Then it says the Lord
will “raise him up,” the future tense EGEIRO [e)geirw]
meaning to lift, to raise, to lift up, to restore, to stimulate or awaken. So
we have a picture of a carnal believer, maybe a reversionist,
who is completely away from the Lord, fragmenting his soul, and then he turns
back but really doesn’t have the strength on his own because he has so blown it
in his spiritual life that he calls other believers to pray for him.
The last word that we will
look at is the word for “heal” in v. 16: NASB “Therefore, confess
your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed.
The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
James
Elders here, since there
hasn’t been any clear revelation concerning the breakdown of the leadership in
the church yet, in terms of pastor, elder, bishop, which all refer to the
leader of a church, the root meaning of PRESBUTEROS [presbuteroj] is most likely “elderly” or mature.” And most likely
the point of this is that they are to call the spiritually mature in the
congregation to pray for them. That is why we are to pray for one another. So
in one sense they are going to sort of piggy-back on someone else’s spiritual
maturity and use them in a sense for a crutch, and this is only fitting for
someone who has become a spiritual cripple. This is in effect what has happened
to the person who has let adversity overwhelm them, have refused to apply
doctrine, and now they have fallen apart in their life, are spiritually inept,
and they may need to have somebody come along side and encourage them. One way
in which we do that is to pray for them.
Today we don’t anoint them
with oil. There are two verbs expressing the concept of anointing. The first is
ALEITHO [a)leiqw], and the second is CHRIO [xriw], the root word from which we get the noun the
anointed one, xristoj. It is
this word that is used of spiritually significant anointing. The word ALEITHO has to
do with the every day function of rubbing oil on your skin. In that climate it
was the normal operating procedure of every person to put oil on their face. That
is what is happening here. It is the concept of anointing themselves with oil,
part of their daily toiletry. What has happened here is that as a result of
discouragement and depression and fragmentation of the soul this person has
reached the point where they don’t just care enough about their daily
activities. The point here is that this has a cultural interpretation. We have
to interpret the passage in light of the times in which it was written.
James
In vv. 17, 18 we have an illustration
of this principle, specifically from 1 Kings 17:1. James 5:17 NASB “Elijah
was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not
rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months.
James 5:19 NASB”
My brethren, if any among you strays from the truth [departs doctrine, quits
using the stress-busters] and one turns him back,